This is a very long post where I’ve tried to articulate: my experiences with studying Japanese, my current plans and activities, and potential challenges that I’m anticipating. I’m sharing this because reading others’ study logs has motivated me to put my thoughts and plans into pixels. I’ve found it very helpful articulating my objectives, and writing some my current activities also made me notice and adjust to some struggles. I don’t plan on making this a study log with frequent updates, but I may do check-ins at milestones or if objectives/activities have major adjustments.
My Japanese learning journey so far
- I initially became motivated to start learning Japanese after spending a few weeks volunteering in middle school as a conversation buddy for Japanese exchange students.
- I took 2 years of structured Japanese classes through a weekend language school during high school (2004-06).
- This got me to the level of around mid N4.
- During that time I made friends with some Japanese exchange students and was able to have simple conversations with them, participated in a speech contest, and kept an online journal.
- In terms of media, I was most interested in Japanese music (L’Arc~En~Ciel, The Blue Hearts, and Ellegarden) and movies (Battle Royale). It was a lot of fun discovering Japanese bands in the days before music streaming. I would order CDs online or my friends would send me burned CDs, and it would take weeks for them to arrive.
- My reading skills were very poor because we were following the Genki/JLPT approach to learning kanji, so even after 2 years I only knew maybe 80-100 and so most of my writing was in hiragana.
- After 2 years, I lost interest in going to Japanese class on the weekend and quit. In hindsight, this was probably because there was a jump in difficulty curve starting the third year of classes and my reaction to feeling uncomfortable was to say that I wasn’t interested anymore.
- I kept in touch with some of my Japanese friends and would message them intermittently on Facebook. Besides that, I didn’t do any Japanese study for about 13 years.
- In late 2019, my wife and I were planning a trip to Japan to celebrate my medical school graduation.
- I decided to start with Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji because I found the approach of mnemonics and chunking to be extremely useful, and because working through that book was a fun and relaxing activity during my last year of school
- It took me about 5 months to go through volume 1 (November 2019-April 2020).
- Compared to my first time studying Japanese, it certainly is much easier to remember kanji now. I learn all vocabulary written in kanji (unless the word is rarely written that way), and even though I have only made it through (most of) N3 level vocab, the Kanji Grid add-on for anki tells me that I know vocab with about 60% of the N2 kanji and 25% of the N1 kanji (in addition to all of the N5-3 kanji).
- It’s certainly made reading materials written for native speakers much easier. Even if I don’t know how a word is pronounced (so I can’t subvocalize it while I’m reading), I can often glean the general meaning based on the keywords.
- While doing RTK, I was also reviewing/relearning Genki I & II
- At that time, I was making all of my own Anki cards, including editing the audio from the CDs that come with the book. I would not recommend doing this, I don’t think it’s worth the time investment and others have already done this work.
- COVID-19 pandemic hit and so our travel plans were cancelled.
- I kept learning new material right up to when I started medical speciality training. I had intended to keep learning new content but was not able to devote the time to making my own flash cards so I ended up just intermittently reviewing the materials I had already made.
- I decided to start with Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji because I found the approach of mnemonics and chunking to be extremely useful, and because working through that book was a fun and relaxing activity during my last year of school
- In 3rd year of residency (end of 2022) I had finished my off-service rotations and my first set of exams, so I was feeling ready to start adding some new material again.
- I realised that when I tried to make my own cards I ended up becoming inconsistent because I would only do it in spurts when I had a large block of available time, which was not very often. So I decided to do some research to find pre-made decks.
- I ended up picking up the N5-1 単語 books and the decks made by Nuke Marine.
- I started again from the beginning, and went quickly through the N5 vocab. I slowed down a bit doing N4 because there was a fair amount that I hadn’t picked up from Genki II.
- I edited the early decks to study the vocab with kanji.
- I ended up picking up the N5-1 単語 books and the decks made by Nuke Marine.
- For the first few months I was basically only doing vocabulary practice with Anki, but I was doing it consistently and making progress.
- In Spring of 2024 I found Bunpro and started using this for grammar practice.
- I also found Satori Reader and would occasionally do some reading/listening practice on there, as well as with NHK Easy News, and Tadoku graded readers.
- I continued with this for just over a year and made it into N2 grammar on Bunpro and almost through the N3 vocabulary deck.
- However, when I was about 6 months away from my second set of licensing exams I noticed that I was procrastinating from studying my work materials by practicing Japanese. So I decided to stop adding new Japanese content and just kept reviewing the “mature” cards (because I could do this in about 10 minutes per day.)
- I realised that when I tried to make my own cards I ended up becoming inconsistent because I would only do it in spurts when I had a large block of available time, which was not very often. So I decided to do some research to find pre-made decks.
My current practice (March 2025)
I finished the intense study period for my licensing exams in early 2025 and so decided I was ready to start gradually increasing my Japanese study time.
- I had reset my N3 vocab deck on Anki, so I turned this back on and have been re-learning it for the past 6 weeks or so.
- I also picked up the Kaishi 1.5k deck because this is a bit more focused vocabulary. I’ve been going through that at an easy pace of 5 cards per day, suspending the ones that I already know (I’ve suspended about half the deck so far)
- I had originally intended to just let Bunpro go fallow and then go through my reviews pile gradually, but I was procrastinating doing that when I saw the pile was hundreds of cards high so instead I decided to just reset my decks back to N4. I’ve been going through it again consistently for the past month and will be starting N3 again in the next few days.
- In terms of media, I’ve been reading バガボンド paperbacks and 聞き耳ラジオ on Satori Reader. I’m about to finish the latter and plan on reading The Jam Maker next. I’ll put on an episode of 初めの一歩 when I’m exercising or folding laundry, etc.
Plan and Current Activities
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Goals
- By 2030, I will travel to Japan to participate in a medical conference.
- While I’m there, I will also visit 永平寺 and participate in a 2-day Zen program.
- By 2040, I will have read 正法眼蔵 and 宗教とは何か
- By 2030, I will travel to Japan to participate in a medical conference.
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Current Objectives
- Finish 単語 Anki decks
- N3: July 27th, 2025 (25% finished)
- N2: March 8th, 2026
- N1: November 11th, 2026
- Finish Bunpro Grammar
- N3: July 21st, 2025
- N2: November 5th, 2025
- N1: February 3rd, 2026
- Apply Japanese by reading and listening to media
- Finish The Jam Maker (Satori Reader): June 1st, 2025
- Read volumes 3-6 of Vagabond: July 1st, 2025
- Finish 単語 Anki decks
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Current Activities
- Daily practice before my wife and kids wake up (for about 1 hour between 5-7AM)
- Anki review of 単語 and Kaishi 1.5k
- I shadow the example sentences, and write recall cards by hand so it takes a little longer (about 10 seconds per card)
- Bunpro reviews and 3 new grammar points (planning to reduce to 2 as needed once I start seeing points that I’m not familiar with anymore, my timeline is scheduled for 2 points/day)
- Anki review of 単語 and Kaishi 1.5k
- Throughout the day, during breaks
- Listen to and then read a chapter on Satori reader
- Read some Vagabond
- Daily practice before my wife and kids wake up (for about 1 hour between 5-7AM)
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Future Objectives
- Satori Reader
- Meditation series, Summer 2025?
- Choose and read an intermediate series, Fall 2025 -Winter 2025/26?
- Decide whether to continue with Satori reader or shift focus by January 1st 2026
- Reading and listening targeted to my interests
- Medical
- Elementary-level anatomy and physiology books
- からだのしくみ図鑑 - start reading later this year?
- 人体のふしぎな話365: Could read an entry per day for 2026?
- Youtube videos and lectures related to medicine, 2027-2028?
- University level anatomy and physiology textbook 新しい人体の教科書: 2028?
- Medical articles, 2029?
- Elementary-level anatomy and physiology books
- General Japanese culture and history
- 読むだけで身につく日本の教養365: 2027?
- 読むだけで身につく日本の教養365歴史編: 2028?
- Philosophy and Zen
- 世界でいちばんやさしい 教養の教科書［人文・社会の教養］, 2028?
- Medical
- Speaking practice
- In the Fall and in 2026, look into hiring a speech tutor and try reconnecting with Japanese friends
- Satori Reader
Anticipated Challenges
- My timeline for finishing Bunpro is based on 2 grammar points per day. This is the pace I was at the first time I went through it up to early N2 content. I’m managing to complete my reviews and 3 “new” points per day in about 15 minutes currently, but the time it takes may increase when I get to more unfamiliar grammar. If it starts taking much more than 20 minutes per day then I will adjust the number of new points accordingly.
- Likewise for Anki, re-learning 10 words from 単語 and learning 5 new words from Kaishi/day has been sustainable for me for the past 6 weeks and was previously sustainable for over 1 year. If it starts taking much more than an hour per day than I’ll need to reduce, first by stopping the Kaishi deck and then dropping the number of new words from 単語, as needed.
- I don’t have my listening and reading practice scheduled and have just been keeping the idea that I want to get it done with a specific timeline and milestones in mind. So far I’ve been staying on track with Vagabond, but not Satori reader. I don’t want to schedule this time (it feels like if I do that it will make me resist more and I’m worried that would impact my other practice). Instead, I’ve built more flexibility into my milestone targets to account for the fact that I’m not expecting that I will do it every day. I’m also hoping that by writing down my intention to read during my work breaks, it will help keep me more mindful and help me stick to it.
- Objectives beyond this year’s are intentionally kept fluid, because I’m sure that I’m going to learn more as I progress and they will change. I’ll be seasonally reviewing those and adjusting, but my goals are intended to be fixed.
